Reference slide: an amateur/semi-formal flower arrangement featuring large dark pink quilled Chrysanthemum with smaller pink and yellow chrysanthemums/dahlias with a variegated ivy arranged in a vase. The flowers are on a table in front of a net curtained window with red brick sill.
Reference sticker: Flash
The subject, tonality and suggested suburban setting immediately brought the 1980s to my mind. The waxy looking petals and showiness of Chrysanthemums always appeared artificial and plastic and remind me of church flower arrangements. In my memories they were chosen, arranged and displayed by a usually female cohort of church acolytes. I guess their function (of the flowers and the women) was to soften the often austere architectural and spiritual space…but only on a superficial level, all the while adhering to a tightly arranged formulaic pattern designed to keep everything in its place.
This programme of online of talks, seminars, discussions and workshops was held over three weeks in June and July 2021. The programme featured a range of national and international artists, theorists and educators. Focusing on the theme of ‘containment’ they explored how mapping, border regimes, architecture and the politics of incarceration inflect contemporary culture and how art and artists explore, question and engage with this subject.
To explore these questions, we are bringing together a range of contributors – artists, writers and educators – including Beatriz Colomina Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Romuald Hazoumè, Jackie Wang, Emma Wolf-Haugh, Nils Norman, Rajindar Singh and Alice Feldman, RESOLVE, Clodagh Emoe, Sarah Karikó, John Wilkins, Kimberly Campanello and Roisin Power Hackett.
A Company of Night Windows Thermal transfer stencil mono print with screen print on aluminium 40cm x 60cm 2021Late Night Daydreaming Thermal transfer stencil mono print with screen print on aluminium 65cm x 50cm 2021
Presented by VISUAL Carlow and Carlow Arts Festival at Woman in the Machine ARTWORKS 2021.
In an industrial site at the edge of a regional town, the rhythm of machines and people stopped a long time ago. A giant landmark – an edifice, sat impatiently, waiting for someone to hit play and turn it on again. Vast spaces were idle and still, air vents flapped and rattled furiously. We are bringing sound to this place, turning up the bass, lighting the shadows… the rats have run from their quiet corners, the air has changed and something brand new is vibrating. A 72 hour lost weekend unfolds.
Woman in the Machine, co-created by VISUAL and Carlow Arts Festival, will unfold through film, exhibitions, sound works, light installations, digital native events, a 360 virtual exhibition space, performances, talks and community engagement projects created in response to Carlow’s landmark former Braun site, and inspired by the film about female pioneers in sound Sisters With Transistors by Lisa Rovner and women working at the intersections of art, science and digital media.
Woman in the Machine is part of Carlow Arts Festival 2021, VISUAL’s Summer Programme and presented as part of Brightening Air | Coiscéim Coiligh, a nationwide, ten day season of arts experiences brought to you by the Arts Council. To see the full Brightening Air | Coiscéim Coiligh programme, visit www.brighteningair.com
With thanks to Sean Gallagher and Clyde Real Estate
Artists
Sound + Light — Invited + Commissioned Jenn Kirby / Sarah Jane Sheils / Kate Butler / Jennifer Walshe / ensembÉal / Elizabeth Hilliard
Visual Arts — Invited + Commissioned Work Chloe Brennan / Michelle Doyle and the Digital Druids / Barbara Knežević / Nadia Armstrong / Elaine Byrne / Caroline Campbell / Kate Fahey / Judy Foley / Fiona Harrington / Janette Lowe / Linda McCann / Colin Martin / Eleanor McCaughey / Fiona Mc Donald / Tara McGinn/ Niamh McGuinne/ Ida Mitrani / Meadbh O’Connor / Paul O ‘Neill / Liliane Puthod / Amanda Rice / Katherine Sankey
Arts Council Collection Lucy Andrews / Rhona Byrne / Maria Farrington / Niamh McCann, Maria McKinney / Helen McMahon / Margaret O’Brien / Fiona Reilly / Lorraine Tuck
Film + Digital — Invited + Commissioned Work George Bolster / Josephin Böttger / Ciara del Grosso / Umay Gunes Kurtulan / Jennifer Moore / Sharon Phelan / Susanne Radelhof / Lisa Rovner / Stefano Santamato / Jim Stephenson
Performance — Invited + Commissioned Work Mish Mash & Reckless Ross / Seve Feathers / Sibhéal Davitt / Spraoí Waterford / Prymary Colours / Tumble Circus / United Fall / Chancleta & Carla Rod
Engaging with Architecture Emma Geoghegan and 4th year students from TU Dublin School of Architecture
Worlds of Escape: From Books to Other Spaces. Each of the artists in this next part of the series interprets the world around them and presents us with an altered version, a lens through which to view the world. We are inviting you to join us over the next few weeks and come and view these otherworlds and their creators. Let’s peek behind the curtain!
Niamh McGuinne is an artist, paper conservator and printmaker. She has been a member of Graphic Studio Dublin since 2010, and is currently on the Board of Directors. Niamh returned to college and completed a Masters in Fine Art from NCAD in 2020, which saw her further expanding her already experimental printmaking practice. She works with sculpture, installation and film alongside her printmaking, which is in itself multi-disciplinary- incorporating screenprint, etching and transfer printing on materials including paper, textiles, perspex and metal.
Niamh’s recent installation pieces – the Shell/ters, comprised three human-scale single occupancy shelters in which to shed anxiety, detach from divisive discourse, reboot energy levels and contemplate one’s own physicality. The structures are thought provoking and paradoxical, at the same time inviting retreat and shelter, but also invoking a sense of unease- treading a line between protection and containment, escape and isolation.
Niamh will talk about this intriguing new work, these spaces she has created, how the work’s meaning has evolved over the past year, and how the global events of the last 12 months have impacted on it.
The National College of Art and Design and NCAD Gallery is delighted to host Spectacular Replica: An NCAD MFA Fine Art 2020 Graduates Exhibition, 21 – 28 January, 2021. The title of this exhibition, Spectacular Replica makes reference to the realities of mediating the work of our arts and cultural practitioners through a screen based lens, as we are currently unable to physically witness their work or our own experiential response in close proximity.
For Spectacular Replica we have devised a number of ways to access the content of the exhibition online. On Thursday, 21 January, 2021, at 5pm we will launch the exhibition with a live art performance, Dance Alone by exhibiting artist Ciarán O’Keeffe broadcast live on Instagram @ncad_gallery and @mfancad_. We are also fortunate to take advantage of the architecture of the NCAD Gallery window that faces onto Thomas Street, Dublin 8, where part of the exhibition can be viewed,
